In early June 2015, I stayed a couple of days at a charming Victorian bed and breakfast, where I spent a few hours in the parlor that first morning and built the character of Bryony Marseilles.
I found these buried notes this past week while working on entries for the BryonySeries guidebook and read them for the first time since I wrote them in 2015.
Up until 2015, Bryony was a shadow in her own series, even though "drop of blood" protagonist Melissa Marchellis was obsessed with her memory to the point of assuming Bryony's persona in her vampire-staged reality.
So what better setting to bring Bryony out of the shadows than in her home state (Michigan) in a home with Simons Mansion elements, where Bryony would live the most noteworthy years of her life.
But to construct Bryony, I also had to construct her parents, for every back story in Before The Blood started with the parents, where all back stories ultimately begin.
I also needed to construct a very stark and primitive Munsonville, which was barely settled when Bryony's parents arrive.
I already knew that her father Galien was a minister and her mother Adele died when Bryony was three years old. I knew that Bertha Parks, the parsonage's housekeeper, stepped into a mothering type of role.
Before typing anything, I pondered on what I did know about Bryony (scant details already written and published) and how to expand the details into her character.
I turned to my long-buried, adolescent interest in astrology and decided to entwine Bryony with the fishing village. I chose a birthdate that made her a Pisces and used lake and fish imagery to fashion her personality and beliefs.
Re-reading these notes this week, I was struck at how remarkably true I stayed to them. I think the only digression was that Bryony never fell in love with either of the Scandinavian twins (she was more intimidated and fascinated by them), although her best friend had unrequited love for one of them.
I also never used the quote from John Simons. But he implemented it.
Temporarily.
Bryony and John's marriage was wonderful when her lake rolled to his shore, the place where two extremely disimiliar people could temporarily meet.
But lakes also roll away from the shore in smaller waves, with deeper mystery.
Here then are the initial, rough notes I made (in all their randomness and typos) on that beautiful summer morning.
Happy scrolling!
The long hours caused a setback, and Galien had forbidden Adele
Adele, her feminism and their premarital sex experiences and Galien, meeting, marriage after Adele is pregnant. She battles persistent bad health due to rhema feer after bought of scarlet fever. Ashamed and moves to Munsonville.
When had Musnonville begun?
Munsonville is pretty new. Need a back story for it. and a reason for Galien to be sent there. Both of them are intellectuals and possibly older individuals that have Bryony a little later in life.
Very wilderness liek. Cottages for fishing and that's about it. A few homes begin to dot the hill, one store.
Need a back story about how Galien and Adele met, fell in love, conversed. They're vegetarians
Owen Munson is there? He is mayor.
Ann’s research highlighted an obscure fact about the village’s origins. Nearly two hundred years before Owen Munson visited the area, French fur trapper and fisherman Pierre Sicard established a small community that never thrived. During a trip to North America, Owen Munson purchased some land, assumed control, and named it after him.
Adele has poor health, they had sex anyway and feel guilty about the sin. Galien wants to be a minister, IS a minister at a church, and they are not married. Want a fresh start. He shares his dilemna with a friend who taught at the Need a back story for the historical Jenson, Shelby, and Thornton. The friend mentions the new settlement that wants to build a church and needs a minister to care for it. A hurried marriage in Thornton (Shelby is much younger) and Galien and Adele transplant themselves to Munsonvillle. (belongs in chapter 2). they live in a fishing cottage while waiting for the church adn parsonage to be compelted
Adele likes to sketch; they both like to read.
Scarlett fever
Adele, her feminism and their premarital sex experiences and Galien, meeting, marriage after Adele is pregnant. She battles persistent bad health due to rhema feer after bought of scarlet fever. Ashamed and moves to
CHAPTER 2: THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. Bryony’s earliest childhood years, Adele’s sickness and death, and Galien’s new role as mother/father. Views Adele’s death as punishment from God and is super strict with Bryony.
SHOW that they shun meant.
lived in a four-room cabin on the lake.
The ngihmare of symtpoms. GAlein did waht and ebruned her sheets at the end left ehr limp, we adn what.
Bryony came home int hepsring and Galein set her aout side, ,up the child dance dbatou ehr fett.
Bryony’s earliest childhood years, Adele’s sickness and death Views Adele’s death as punishment from God and is super strict with Bryony.
Shotgun marriage
Pregnancy and early years of marriage
Adele as mother and Galien as co-parent father
Building a church together
(reading with his head on her lap)
Bryony is ho june 5, 1892 brony is 17 Dec. 24, 1893 Bryony is 18.
Bryony is born 1875.
Bryony (Feb. 19) Water and fish are the biggest metaphors
Ethereal
Dreamer
Makes connections others don't see
Sees below the surface
Intuitive
Swim through life: with the flow or against it?
Kind to friends and strangers
What you see isn't necessarily what you get, much swims below the surface
She is the shy (?) one in the corner listening, especially true at the Munsonville Socoety for the Humanities meetings.
Listens to people's problems
Is trustworthy
Escapes through daydreaming or reading
Swims away from her problems?
Emotions are complex, fluid, stormy, changeable.
Her challenge is to discern between truth and mirage. (John faithful, not unfaithful)
Vivid imagination
Fascinated with the green-blue lake
She is the lake, John is the land, very different to each other, the magic is where they meet, the conflict is where they don't
When the honeymoon period ends, Bryony is wary of leaving Munsonville.
Daydreams of love growing up, love is a daydream
Bryony’s actual marriage to John is gentle rain, thunderstorms, retreat, ebbing away
She gives everything when it comes to love…except leaving Munsonville and her father.
Bryony wants the fairytale romance in the woods with John. John wants her to roam the world with him. He sees Simons Mansion as their retreat sanctuary. Eventually, they both view it as prison.
Bryony is in love with one of the twins, then Henry, and then with John.
To John, there is an aura of mystery around Bryony, a pureness, and a subtle distance that intrigues him.
Bryony shrugs off emotional jams or arguments with John, to the point of minimizing the depth of his need behind his requests, can be evasive and even avoidant. John counteracts this with his blunt, brief, candid directness (think morning room scene where he overturns the table when Bryony casually announces she is not going).
She is physically weak, but psychically strong. (John sees the capability, the Reverend Marseilles sees the limits).
Easily forgives
Is lonely if the important person in her life, John, leaves her alone to take care of her life when her life is a mess. She interprets this as lack of concern and love on his part. (Why she reaches out to Henry).
Swimming with the currents, her life in Munsonville as she has always known it, Bryony is most relaxed. She resists John pulling her against that current for a broader life.
Needs a lover, John, to safeguard her and give her security. It seems John wants to provide this. He wants Bryony to find it in him. She does, but the pull of Munsonville and her father’s wish she stay is strong.
John tries to be her optimal partner: a man that can inspire her to be larger and protect her while doing it, to ground her in her unrealistic fantasies, to help her achieve.
More comfortable and at home drifting with the Munsonville currents
Copes by floating away in her own world
Not a leader
A friend to all
Has trouble saying no
Supportive
The scent of the lake turns her on.
Sex and love are the same for her (at girst)
With a heavy heart, Galien shouldered the task of becoming father and mother to Bryony as well as chief housekeeper.
How managed daily life with a child beside him . What their daily life consists of
Galien's struggles to maintain his vegetarian principles. He reads a lot. Misses company of Adele won't find it in other women so begins the Musnovnilel Scoiety for the HJuamnites men only no owmenb.
He reads constantly, so Bryony asks him to teach her how to read, impatient with being read to so she can read on her own like he does too.
What he cooks for her
He also reads stories. Her favorite Bible stories have to do with fisherman.
Bryony lieks to sketch and is ecurged to sketh wwhat she sees. Precosious devlepmet.
She learns to read and reads aloud to her father while lying in his lap. Galien recreates Adele 's habits as much as possible in Bryony.
Housekeeping suffering. STruggled to keep up.
"Reverend Marseilles," Bertha Parks said as she removed the mop form his hand. "I am here to help."
Wityh a tremendous sigh of relilg, Galien relinquished his weapon to the woman soon to become general of his household.
Has chlorosis: Health: headaches, breathless, blue tinge (iron-deficient anemia)
Propfessor friend start visitnh Galien and eventually brings more friends. Bryony stays close by. Bertha Parks comes to help with the housework.
Bryony's preschool years at home with Galien: what were they like
Bryony is reading in preschool by Galien
Her favorite Bible stories have to do with fishermen
Has sketches that Adele did; Bryony likes to sketch, too.
Psudo-incestuous (reminscent of The Cenci, study)
Mother Goose
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Aesop's Fables
End with Bertha Parks bullying her way into the household.
Housekeeping suffering. STruggled to keep up.
Needs to use her creativity
Dedicates herself wholly to the tasks at hand (even Reverend Marseilles’ parsonage work).
Has a difficult time setting forth a course of action for themselves. Floats along with child-like trust fate will guide her the right way. Needs guidance and grounding.
John handles all money affairs.
Bryony handles Bryga
Loves Anna to the moon and back but lacks the inner discipline to discipline her. Can be a child right beside Anna and share too much about her life with John. Anna eagerly soaks it up.
Needs to be near a body of water, needs to be near Lake Munson and Munsonville. Is grounded there.
Not one to exercise much because of poor health
Simple clothing as a child. John chooses bold fashionable clothing for her in marriage.
“Time for the mermaid to step onto shore,” John said.
